


life’s just a series of goodbyes (i hated you for walking away)

by wafflesofdoom



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Closure, F/M, Other, Post-Break Up, Post-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:15:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24024190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wafflesofdoom/pseuds/wafflesofdoom
Summary: if buck was the kind of guy to believe in fate, he’d find it strange that they were called to an incident with a hot air balloon a few days before the train crash – a few days before abby had come crash-landing back into his life without warning. it was too much of a coincidence, if you asked him, because the hot air balloon had already put abby back in his head, forcing him to think of the woman who’d all but abandoned him for the first time in a long time.or, in short - a speculative 3x18 fic looking at how the buck & abby reunion might go, featuring buck's lengthy inner monologue.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley & Abby Clark, Evan "Buck" Buckley/Abby Clark, Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz, Evan “Buck” Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Comments: 17
Kudos: 192





	life’s just a series of goodbyes (i hated you for walking away)

If Buck was the kind of guy to believe in fate, he’d find it strange that they were called to an incident with a hot air balloon a few days before the train crash – a few days before Abby had come crash-landing back into his life without warning. It was too much of a coincidence, if you asked him, because the hot air balloon had already put Abby back in his head, forcing him to think of the woman who’d all but abandoned him for the first time in a long time.

Maybe – maybe abandoned was a strong word.

Maybe it wasn’t a strong enough word, now he was thinking about it. Buck’s feelings about Abby had been complicated from the moment she’d left his arms and walked into the airport – the last time he’d seen her, come to think of it.

Buck had never been much of a fan of complicated. That was – well, it was at the core of who Buck 1.0 had been. Nothing about hook-ups was ever particularly complicated, not when Buck was so sure of himself, not when he was good at sex, and Buck was very, very good at sex. Casual sex, in particular.

Casual sex had been Buck’s answer to building a life devoid of complication. When things were casual, everyone knew where they stood, and you never had to worry about messy, complicated feelings getting involved.

It was cynical, Buck knew that.

But –

Well, it’s not as though he’d ever had particularly great examples of love, growing up.

(It always came back to childhood trauma, didn’t it?)

James and Patricia Buckley had been, on paper, the perfect marriage. They’d gotten married right after they’d graduated from university, and bought a nice house in suburban Pennsylvania, and Maddie had come along two years later, and their life had been picture-perfect – to anyone who’d never bothered to look too closely, Buck assumed.

He’d always wondered how people didn’t see it.

Then again, he’d gotten so good at hiding his own feelings as an adult that he had sort of started to understand how you could easily force the world to see what you wanted them to see, and not reality.

Buck had been the surprise.

Anyone who looked at the age difference between him, and Maddie, could see that pretty clearly. Ten years was a long time to wait to have your second kid, if you asked anyone rational.

Buck was maybe five, or six, the first time he understood he hadn’t been wanted. He’d been seven when his father had told him straight to his face Evan Buckley had been his greatest mistake – and well, things hadn’t improved much after that, and definitely not after Maddie had left for college, leaving Buck behind in a house very different to the one she’d spent her childhood in.

Their parents hadn’t been the warmest people in the world, sure – but they were never as downright cold, and calculated to Maddie, as they had been to Buck. No matter – no matter what he did, no matter how much of the perfect, all-American boy he tried to be, nothing was ever good enough for his parents. Football, student government, straight A’s, summers spent as a counsellor at summer camp, part-time jobs, the works. Buck had graduated top of his high-school class, and his parents hadn’t even bothered to turn up.

It wasn’t rocket science to figure out why he’d gotten a little off the rails after that.

Not being wanted did that to a person.

So, Buck figured out an easy way to make sure everyone wanted him. Sex. Lots, and lots of casual, no strings attached, ‘I won’t be calling you in the morning’ kind of sex. His first week away at college had been nothing short of a revelation – turns out, all the things that had made him absolutely invisible to his parents, had made him the centre of attention at college, his bright blond hair and football jersey all he ever needed to encourage someone into his bed.

It had been enough to delude Buck into thinking he had all the intimacy he needed, for a long time.

Until it hadn’t, Buck sighed.

Loneliness was a funny one. Buck – he was used to being lonely. Maddie had moved out of their parents perfect suburban home at eighteen, to go to nursing school, and Buck had been eight, and he’d been left all alone in a big house where no one wanted to speak to him, and he’d been lonely most of his life, since then.

Loneliness, real loneliness, the kind that’s etched into your bones, like it was for Buck, isn’t easily shaken. School – school had been fine. For eight hours a day, Buck was surrounded by people who didn’t think he was a waste of space, and he had friends, and he could pretend that his loneliness wasn’t eating him up from the inside out.

College – college was better, because college brought sex, and alcohol, and drugs, and even Buck had been surprised by how all of those things so easily filled the void in his life left by a lifetime of being ignored.

He’d been fully aware it wasn’t a sustainable lifestyle, but Buck hadn’t wanted to change, not really – not until Abby.

Those phone-calls – they were the first kind of real intimacy Buck had ever really known in his life. Abby’s voice, quiet, and calm, and measured, always seemed to talk him into some sort of a trance, and he’d been a goner from the beginning.

He’d been so afraid of it – so fucking afraid to let her in, to really let Abby see who he was, and yet, somehow, she had convinced him to do it, in that calm, quiet way of hers, and Buck had fallen so in love it had felt like he was drowning in it, unable to do anything except embrace the way Abby found her way into every corner of his life and filled all those empty, lonely pockets with life, and laughter, Abby quickly finding a home in the station, with Buck’s friends, with the only family he really had.

And then she’d left.

Buck had understood, really – he had. He’d cried like a child in Abby’s arms when she’d told him for what felt like hours, and Abby had never made him feel ashamed of it, stroking his hair and pressing kisses to his forehead as he’d hiccupped out all the sadness he’d felt.

He’d still been convinced she’d come back, though. Foolishly, Buck had been so certain she’d come home, to him, and life would continue on, and he’d get to stay in love with this gorgeous woman who’d shown him a world Buck had deliberately kept himself out of, for his own protection.

Buck had waited for her to come back for so long, he hadn’t expected it to hit him like a tonne of bricks to see Abby back, standing in the middle of the train crash. Buck – he’d accepted she was gone and so his brain hadn’t prepared for the possibility of her coming back, even if it was three years too late.

Her glasses were new.

That’s the first thing Buck noticed. He – he was sure he wasn’t entitled to an open on it, but he didn’t like them. Buck had loved the pink glasses Abby always wore – loved the way her nose would scrunch adorably as she laughed, pushing her glasses a little higher on her forehead, the pink frames catching the morning light in a way that Buck was sure was seared into his memory for the rest of his life, Buck’s face pressed into the soft material of Abby’s bedding as he watched her slowly wake up, her glasses the first – and most important – step in the slow process of getting ready for the day ahead.

“Buck.”

She’d said his name like a prayer – like he was some sort of angel here to save her, and Buck couldn’t really argue against that, the scene of the train crash behind them overwhelming, even to him, and he was supposed to be the one trained to deal with these situations.

“Abby,” Buck had tried as Abby turned back toward the wreckage, a determined look on her face. “Abby, stop,” he pleaded, wondering why she was doing this – she’d been a dispatcher, Abby knew better than anyone that you needed to get out of the way and let first responders do their job.

Abby wrenched her arm from his grip, fixing him with a steely glare Buck had never seen on her face before. “I am trying to find my fiancé!” she said, desperation in her voice flooring Buck almost as much as the word fiancé.

Abby – Abby was getting married?

Whatever sort of meltdown mode his brain went into, there and then, Buck forgot how to speak – in English, and any other language he had vague knowledge of.

“And we’ll find him,” Eddie’s voice was calm, and stoic next to him. “But you used to be a dispatcher, Abby, you know you need to stand back and let us do our jobs.”

“That’s easy for you to say!”

Abby was getting married?

“No,” Eddie reassured. “It’s not, but it’s reality, and you know it. What does he look like? I’ll let the others know to keep an eye out for him.”

Buck seemed to have ascended to some new plane of existence as Abby described her fiancé, rubbing at his face with a soot-covered hand. “I need to get something from the truck,” he said eventually, knowing Eddie was eyeing up his fully-equipped uniform with a questioning look.

Buck was just grateful he didn’t say anything, giving Buck the space he needed to step away, pushing through the crowd until he was back at the ladder truck, the metal cold and familiar under his fingertips as he swung himself around the side, trying to hide from the chaos of the train-crash, just for a minute.

He just needed a minute.

Buck had imagined a lot of different ways that Abby might come back to Los Angeles. His favourite was always the scenarios where she’d turn up at his door, full of apologies and love for him, and they’d be okay. He – Buck didn’t dream of that one, not anymore, not since the explosion.

The explosion was when he finally accepted he was nothing but a distant memory for Abby. Buck couldn’t imagine a world where Abby had seen that on the news, and not called, to see if he was okay – so that meant she was still in Europe, somewhere, exploring the world like she’d planned to.

Buck just hadn’t imagined any scenario where she’d come back with a ring on her finger and someone new in her life – and he definitely hadn’t imagined how completely alone he would be when she did. He could imagine the pity on her face when she found out, found out that despite everything, despite all the ways she’d gotten him to open up and talk about his feelings, Buck was still alone.

Shaking his head, Buck pushed his persistent, annoying thoughts down, needing to focus.

Buck was a damn good firefighter – he knew that much about himself – and so he was going to do just that, fight fires and save some lives.

He could follow through on his existential crisis later.

Shoving his helmet back on, Buck moulded his face into an impenetrable mask, marching back out into the chaos. “Eddie,” he called, Eddie looking over his shoulder. “Cap wants us on search and rescue, starting with carriage four,” he nodded at the carriage up ahead, people clearly visible in the wreckage. They needed to get them out – and fast, Buck concluded.

The fire wasn’t getting under control.

Eddie nodded, holding out a fist to Buck, the corners of his mouth quirking up into a familiar, reassuring grin. “Let’s go save some lives,” he said.

Buck nudged his fist against his best friends, nodding. “Let’s go save some lives.”

Buck was exhausted, right down to his bones, by time the fire had been brought under control, and the train had been cleared. Dawn was beginning to break, and bathed in the bright pinks and gold of the morning sun, the wreckage of the train looked even worse than it had done in the dark – in the daytime, you could see all the humanity left behind by a disaster, Buck thought to himself, gaze flickering over the bags, and shoes, and coats, the remains of lives that had been irreparably changed by the accident.

That was the part of being a firefighter he wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to, the loss – but he’d rather be overwhelmed by it, than have turned into the killing machine the SEALS had been training him up to be.

At least he was still human if he felt grief.

“Water,” Hen tossed him a bottle, a blissfully cold bottle of water. “You look like you’re about to run out of batteries, Buckaroo.”

Buck nodded, downing the bottle in one go, pouring the remains over his head, trying to cool himself down. It had been hot, in the middle of the smouldering train, and his turnout gear didn’t help much. Stripping his jacket off, Buck flopped down on the trodden grass, chest heaving.

“We did good, tonight.”

Buck propped himself up on his elbows as Bobby spoke, their captain looking as dishevelled as he felt, all of them badly in need of a shower.

“I’m proud of you,” Bobby finished simply, knowing they were too tired for more. “Let’s get back to the station, you’re all well overdue something to eat.”

Buck tried to ease himself to his feet, groaning as his bad leg gave out from underneath him.

“Buck?” Chimney was at his side instantly, giving him a questioning look.

“I’m just tired, is all,” Buck reassured, taking the hand Chimney offered so he could stand up without falling, and cracking his head open. “My leg acts up sometimes, when I’ve been pushing myself too hard for too long,” he admitted. “I’m pretty sure it’s a mental thing, I’ve got the all clear.”

“Still,” Chimney hummed. “Let me or Hen take a look at it when we’re back in the station.”

“I just need a very hot shower, and a very cold ice-pack,” Buck admitted, giving Chimney’s shoulder a squeeze. “But I’d appreciate you taking a look at it, man.”

Chimney responded with a smile, pushing Buck good-naturedly toward the truck. “Hop to it,” he said. “Bobby promised pancakes at four am that I will be making sure he follows through on.”

Buck couldn’t help but smile, slumping against his seat as the truck started to move. It wasn’t until they were back at the station and he was in the shower that Buck realised he hadn’t thought about Abby once, all night – he wasn’t even sure that she’d found her fiancé, and Buck couldn’t help but feel terrible as he realised just how easily he’d put her back in a box and forgotten about her.

“Hey, Eddie,” Buck called, rubbing a towel roughly through his hair. They still had a couple of hours left on their shift, and he wasn’t entirely sure he had it in him to put his uniform back on, eyeing up his gym shorts and t-shirt.

“Yeah?” Eddie popped his head around the door, clearly having only gotten out of the shower, towel clutched around his waist.

“Did – do you know if Abby found her fiancé?” he asked quietly, not quite able to meet Eddie’s eyes.

Eddie nodded. “Someone from the 124 found him – couple of broken bones and a concussion, I think,” he said. “Last I saw, she was riding in the ambulance with him.”

Buck nodded. “Thanks.”

“Do you – do you want to talk about it?” Eddie asked, rooting in his locker for his deodorant.

“What’s there to talk about?” Buck shrugged, the lie sounding painfully see-through to his own ears, let alone anyone else.

“I saw your face when she said she was looking for her fiancé, Buck,” Eddie said. “I just want to make sure you’re okay, is all.”

Buck swallowed thickly, t-shirt in hand as he looked up. “I don’t know if I am,” he admitted, pausing for a second to pull his t-shirt on, sitting heavily down on the bench behind him. “I didn’t think I’d ever see her again.”

Eddie nodded, sitting down next to him. “She’s not what I expected,” he said. “She’s….”

“Older?” Buck couldn’t help the way his mouth quirked up at the sides. “Twice my age. I – it’s not like I expected it to happen. For a while there, I was so afraid of losing her as a friend, I didn’t let anything happen, but….”

“It did.”

Buck nodded. “It – it sounds pretty fucking sad when I say it out loud, but Abby was the first person I ever loved, properly,” he said. “And she was the first person who made me feel like I was worth a conversation.”

Eddie was uncharacteristically quiet.

“Buck 1.0 had a lot of issues,” Buck couldn’t help but snort. “I just – she was my first love, you know? And then she just – left.”

“And you feel like you’ve never had closure?”

Buck sighed. “Exactly,” he said. “I feel like I never got closure and seeing her again – it’s just bringing up all these old feelings I thought I was over, but apparently not.”

Eddie gave his shoulder a squeeze. “They do say you never get over your first love,” he said, standing up.

“Have you?”

Eddie smiled fondly to himself. “Yeah,” he said. “Mostly.”

“That smile says otherwise,” Buck teased.

“We’re not reliving my awkward high-school relationship here, Buck,” Eddie rolled his eyes. “If you need closure, ask Abby for closure.”

“Is it really that easy?”

“Does it have to be any more complicated than that?”

“What’s complicated?” Hen practically swung into the locker room, branding a bottle of deep heat that Buck was suddenly concerned was for him.

“Buck’s love life, apparently,” Eddie said, buttoning his clean shirt. “Abby was at the train crash,” he explained.

“What?” Hen’s eyes widened comically. “Sorry, how am I only just getting this information now?”

“Because it’s not important,” Buck mumbled.

“Because he had a crisis about it,” Eddie corrected. “I told him, if he needs closure, he needs to ask her for closure.”

Hen nodded her agreement. “He’s right, Buck,” she said. “Abby is the only person that can give you what you need.”

“A lobotomy?”

“Answers,” Hen rolled her eyes. “If you need answers – if you want answers, you’re entitled to ask, Buck. She left you without much of an explanation, I think I’d want to know why she didn’t call.”

“Are you done with emotionally torturing me, so you can start physically torturing me, or?” Buck squinted at his friend, gesturing toward the bottle of deep heat.

“If you want my hands all over you, all you’ve got to do is ask, Buckaroo,” Hen teased good-naturedly, Buck following her to the locker-room. His leg didn’t flare up so often, anymore, but when it happened at work, the terrible twosome that was Chimney and Hen were usually to be found hovering with an ice-pack and some deep heat.

It was easier to give in, than to argue, Buck had discovered the first time he’d protested and said he could do it himself.

“I’m pretty sure it’s mental,” Buck said, lying down on one of the gym mats. “Like, phantom pain. You know how people who’ve lost legs still feel their leg is there? Well – I still feel a ladder truck on top of me.”

“You might want to talk to Frank about that,” Eddie joked, going about re-racking the weights as Hen dug her magnificent, horrible fingers into Buck’s calf, sending a jolt of pain up his spine.

“Ow!”

“Aw, did I hurt the baby?” Hen teased. “Man, you’re tense as hell. Do you ever stretch out?”

Buck propped himself up on his elbows, trying to kick at Hen’s arm with the foot she had trapped in her grip. “Yes!” he lied, thinking of all the times he had just worked out and went right back to work, ignoring the way his muscles protested.

“Don’t lie to me, it’s rude,” Hen said. “After what happened with your leg, Buck, you should be more careful. You might think you’re indestructible, but you’re very much human, and humans break. Buy a foam roller or something.”

“Yes, mom.”

Hen pinched his ankle, digging her fingers into the muscle of his leg harder than necessary. “I’m far too young to be your mother,” she said pointedly.

“Um, hi.”

Buck craned his neck around the side of the weights bench to see who the voice belonged to, his eyes widening as he realised it was Abby. “Hi,” he managed to choke out, finding at least one of the words he had completely lost the previous night.

“I wondered if we could talk,” Abby asked, looking awfully out of place in the fire house. “I – I didn’t realise you’d still be on shift.”

“We’re nearly finished,” Hen said, pinching Buck’s ankle once more as he tried to kick her again. “I’ll let Cap know you clocked off.”

Buck wasn’t sure if he wanted to kiss Hen, or kill her, but he couldn’t do much except nod, using the weights bench to drag himself up off the mat, his leg feeling better already. “I’ll just get my things,” he said, jerking a thumb toward the locker rooms.

Without waiting for an answer, Buck headed for the locker room, pausing for a minute to tug a pair of sweatpants on before grabbing his bag, Hen and Eddie gone from the floor by time he came back out, Abby standing, alone, in the middle of the fire house.

It felt painfully awkward as Buck approached Abby, stopping about five feet away from her. “There’s a coffee shop, around the corner,” he said, adding rather unhelpfully. “It’s new.”

“I could do with a coffee,” Abby let out a relieved laugh, and just like that – it felt like the tension had eased slightly.

“How is – how’s your fiancé?” Buck asked as they walked, the sun beating down now, Buck squinting as he realised he’d left his sunglasses in Eddie’s car the previous day.

Abby nodded. “He’s doing okay – thanks to you guys,” she said, voice soft. “Two broken legs, but it could have been worse,” she admitted, murmuring a thank you as Buck held open the door for her, the coffee shop still quiet – it was pretty early in the morning.

“It was a pretty intense crash,” Buck said. “How are you doing?”

“I’m okay,” Abby said, sliding into a seat.

Buck nodded, unsure of what to say. “What can I get you?” he blurted, gripping a menu far too tightly for it to be perceived as normal.

“You don’t have to – “

“I can get you a coffee, Abby,” Buck interrupted. “What would you like?”

“Just an Americano, please.”

Buck nodded, ignoring the twinge in his leg as he headed for the counter, ordering their drinks. He genuinely felt like he was having some sort of anxiety attack, Abby’s sudden reappearance in his life completely overwhelming – and even more sure off the back of a twenty-four hour shift. Buck was known to be a bit of an emotional wreck when he was tired.

“Did you get hurt last night?” Abby asked as he sat down, looking concerned. “You’re limping, and Hen was…” she trailed off, gesturing vaguely.

“I got hurt,” Buck admitted. “But not recently. It was – it was about a year after you left, actually. There was a terrorist attack, and the ladder truck I was on, it exploded, and I – I got trapped under it.”

Abby’s eyes widened, her hand flying to her mouth. “Buck.”

“It’s fine – I’m fine now,” he shook his head. “I wasn’t then,” he admitted. “I thought you’d call, when it happened.”

“I didn’t know,” Abby said, voice quiet. “I’m sorry Buck, I didn’t know.”

“Would you have called if you had known?” Buck found himself asking, the words out there before he could stop himself. He had wondered it, enough times back then – wondered if Abby would have ended her radio silence if she’d known he had nearly died.

If that would have made a difference.

“Buck….”

“It’s – it’s just that you left, Abby,” Buck couldn’t stop the strangled way his voice came out as he spoke. “You left, and I know you needed space, but I – I waited for you, Abby, I waited for you for so long, and I needed you, and you just – you dropped off the face of the planet.”

Before Abby could reply, their coffees arrived, and Buck lost himself in his panic for a minute as the waitress set them down on their table, chest heaving. It was as though all the things he’d been bottling up for years were all bubbling to the surface, now, desperate to escape now he was finally face to face with Abby.

“I’m sorry.”

Buck sighed, slumping in his chair. “No, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”

“You’re allowed to have feelings, Buck.”

“Yeah,” Buck laughed bitterly. “People have been telling me that.”

“I – I thought about our relationship a lot, when I first left,” Abby admitted, pausing to take a sip of her coffee. “And how I treated you, when it all ended, and I made a lot of mistakes, Buck.”

“Our relationship never felt like a mistake to me.”

“Our relationship wasn’t a mistake, Buck,” Abby corrected herself. “But the way I treated you when it ended was, and I’m sorry for that.”

“I was lost without you,” Buck admitted quietly. “I thought you’d be gone for a couple of months, and you’d come back, and we’d be okay.”

Buck didn’t like to think much about the person he’d become while he’d waited for Abby to come back. He had sat in that ghost of apartment, alone, night after night, waiting for Abby to come back from her soul-searching trip – and she never had, and Buck had spiralled, he’d spiralled in a way he never had before, his heart shattered into a million pieces in his chest, and everyone expecting him to just go on, and keep living with a chest full of glass.

“I should have been more honest with you.”

The words felt like they were stabbing right into the remains of Buck’s stupid, useless heart.

“You were never coming back, where you?” realisation set in for Buck, there and then. “Not to me, at least.”

Abby’s eyes were full of sympathy – full of pity.

Buck hated it. He had always hated being pitied, but he especially hated that look coming from Abby, of all people, who used to look at him with adoration, and admiration, and everything except pity, even when he finally let down those walls he’s so carefully constructed around himself, she hadn’t pitied him.

But now she did.

“Why did you let me believe you would?” he asked.

“At the beginning, I thought I might,” Abby said, pushing her glasses up her nose. Buck used to find it so endearing, when she did that – he’d tease her something senseless, calling her a nerd (his nerd, Buck mentally corrected, and then corrected himself all over again – she wasn’t his anymore.) “But I…. You met me when I was in a really bad place, Buck, and I think you wanted more from me than I was able to give, and I didn’t realise that until I left, and then I was too much of a coward to tell you that.”

Buck was quiet for a second, messing with the paper straw in his coffee. He hated those dumb paper straws, already seeing pieces of half disintegrated paper clumping at the bottom of his drink. “Would you ever have told me? If the train hadn’t crashed, and you hadn’t ended up back in LA?” he asked, trying his best to swallow his anger, and bitterness.

“No,” Abby admitted. “I don’t think I would have, Evan.”

His name sounded so familiar, and yet unfamiliar as it passed her lips – his real name, the one people so rarely used. Maddie, sometimes, when he was particularly upset – or Athena, when she was giving him a lecture of some sort.

Buck used to love how she’d say Evan – all quiet, and breathless, as though it was astounding to her that he was there, in her apartment, in her life, in love with her.

Swallowing thickly, Buck nodded. “Thanks for being honest, at least.”

“I owe you that,” Abby said. “I do, Buck. I should have called you a long time ago, to explain, but then my brother forwarded me the letter you wrote…”

Buck’s gaze snapped up from where it had been fixed on his coffee. “You got that letter?” he could feel his jaw on the verge of hitting the floor. That – that had been one of the only times in his entire life Buck had ever written an actual letter, and he’d always just assumed her brother hadn’t forwarded it on.

Because surely she would have called, if she’d read it.

“I thought I was doing the right thing, by not replying,” Abby said. “By letting you move on. You – you were right, Buck, it was wrong of me to leave you here, waiting on the ghost of a relationship, a ghost of a person. I wanted you to move on, and I thought – I thought when you wrote me that letter, you maybe already had.”

“I hadn’t,” Buck admitted. “It took me a really long time to get over you, Abby. I – I sometimes think I never fully will. You’re the first person I ever loved.”

“I won’t be the last.”

There was a familiar grin on Abby’s face as she countered his statement. Buck couldn’t help but roll his eyes. “Yeah, because I am so easy to love, aren’t I?”

“You absolutely are,” Abby confirmed “Falling in love you was the easiest decision I ever made, Buck.”

“Decision?” Buck couldn’t help but question. Love being a decision didn’t sound at all romantic to him – no, he always thought of his and Abby’s relationship as some sort of predestined fate, a random phone-call on the worst day of his life bringing him the woman he was so convinced was the love of his life.

Abby nodded. “I’ve always thought of love as a decision, you know? You and I, we decided to try, and make it work, despite everything that was going on back then, with my mom – and then I decided to end it,” she said, voice soft. “It doesn’t mean I loved you any less, Buck, I just needed to find myself, and in doing that, it turns out that LA just wasn’t the place for me anymore.”

“I’d have followed you anywhere, you know,” Buck blurted. He’d never admitted that to anyone – how often he’d thought about buying a plane ticket, and joining Abby in Europe, and seeing the world. It had never been a part of his plan, but he’d been willing to change it for Abby.

“I know,” Abby nodded. “But that’s why I didn’t ask, Buck. You – you are the most wonderful man I think I’ve ever met. Considering all the things you’ve gone through in your life, and you’re still so kind, and good, and you love to help people – “

“Abby – “

“No, let me finish,” Abby interrupted. “Buck, you are a wonderful person, and I’m sorry it didn’t work out between us – but I’m also not sorry, because I don’t think it really ever would have worked for us. We – we were in such different phases of life, and I couldn’t ask you to skip so many of your own to catch up with me.”

Buck wasn’t really sure what to say.

“I really do treasure what we had, Buck, and that’s not just me trying to placate you – our relationship will always mean a lot to me,” Abby said. “But I don’t regret ending it. I regret not being more honest with you, and I regret not telling you sooner I wasn’t coming back, and I really do regret hurting you. And for that, I am really sorry.”

Buck nodded. “Okay,” he said, voice thick with emotion he was doing his best to hide. “Yeah, okay. Thanks – well, thanks for being honest with me.”

“I’m just sorry its three years too late, Evan.”

Abby’s words felt strangely overwhelming as Buck let them settle in, her apology and explanation joining the dots and making that whole period of his life make more sense than it ever had. Knowing now, that Abby had never planned to come back – well, it made sense. It made him hurt for his past self, who had waited and hoped and waited until he had nothing left, but it didn’t hurt him all that much now.

Now, it felt like closure.

Just like Eddie had said he needed.

“So,” Buck’s mouth quirked at the corners in an attempt at a smile. “Abby Clark, getting married.”

Abby rolled her eyes good-naturedly. “You don’t have to do this, Buck,” she said, voice soft, and reassuring – as though she’d just let him walk away. Buck knew she would, if he wanted that – Abby would let him walk out that door and never come back, just like she had done at the airport, but he had to admit he was curious.

“I’m sure this will probably be the last time I see you,” Buck replied, Abby’s expression enough of an answer. “So, I want to know – who is this new Abby Clark, and who is she marrying?”

Abby laughed, a sound so familiar it felt like it was settled right into Buck’s bones – a memory that felt tinged with a lot less bitterness than it had done the previous day. “Well,” Abby said, pausing to push her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “It all started in Ireland.”

The morning was just about turning to the afternoon as Buck and Abby left the coffee shop, Buck holding the door for Abby once more as they stepped out into the afternoon sun, Abby murmuring thank you as they stood outside on the pavement.

“Thank you,” Abby said again, a little louder.

“What for?”

“For hearing me out, I guess,” Abby shrugged slightly, nudging Buck’s side with her elbow. “For still being you, even after all these years.”

“You think?”

Abby nodded. “You’ve built a pretty incredible life for yourself, Evan.”

Buck rubbed at the back of his neck. “Well, you, uh – you helped, you know,” he said. “I’d probably still be Buck 1.0 if it wasn’t for you.”

“Oh, I doubt that,” Abby shook her head. “You don’t give yourself enough credit, Buck. All I did was break your heart.”

Buck laughed. “You did more than that. I mean it, Abby – loving you, it changed my life. I think I’ll always love you for that,” he said, hating the ways his cheeks turned pink as he admitted Abby’s impact on his life aloud for the first time.

“I think you’d have done all that yourself, anyway,” Abby smiled. “Whoever gets to love you for the rest of their life, Evan, is going to be really lucky. You know that, right?”

Buck wasn’t sure if he entirely believed it, there and then – he had a multitude of issues it was going to take more than a conversation with his ex-girlfriend to overcome, and his crippling fear of abandonment and loneliness came top of the list. But those were problems for Frank, he knew that much.

For now, he’d take what Abby was saying at face value – he’d work through the rest later.

“You too,” Buck reassured, nudging Abby back. “Take care of yourself, Abs.”

Abby rocked forward on her heels, still needing to stand on tiptoe to be able to press her lips to his cheek in a brief kiss. “You’re getting taller, I swear,” she teased, stepping back. “Goodbye, Buck.”

Buck raised his hand in a wave. “Bye, Abby.”

Hours later, Buck couldn’t quite get Abby’s words out of his head – maybe, maybe he didn’t give himself enough credit for the things he’d survived in life. Buck had always been exceptionally good at believing he was the root and cause of all problems, but maybe –

Maybe it was time he gave himself some damn credit. Buck had built a pretty great life for himself, if only he could stop thinking about how it could all be swept out from underneath his feet in the blink of an eye. It could, that could happen – but it almost might not happen, and it was probably about time he stopped waiting for the other shoe to fall and started building the kind of life he wanted, building a life that would last long after the 118 was in different hands, and he had a different badge on his chest.

Because it was inevitable life would change – but that didn’t mean Buck had to be left behind in a ghost of a life he was clinging too hard too.

No, Buck wouldn’t give his father the satisfaction of knowing Buck lived his life alone – always at the edge of everything, on the outside looking in.

Reaching for his phone, Buck had hit dial.

“Hey, Eddie? Yeah, I'm good. Are you busy later? I was thinking I could make dinner.”

**Author's Note:**

> quarantine had me binging this whole show in two weeks and far too obsessed with evan buckley. though this will be not quite canon in a week, i couldn't help but write about what a buck/abby talk might look like - i have a lot of thoughts about how transformative their relationship was for buck, and how transitional it was for abby, and this fic is the result.
> 
> title is taken from 'bloodoath' by EXES & petey. 
> 
> (take the ending how you will. we love an open ending at the end of a 6,000 word buck inner monologue.)


End file.
